Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Making of an Indian

  8 September 2013, by P N Haksar

  In the citation which the Vice-Chancellor has just read out, some flattering things have been said about me. I was rather pleased hearing it all. At the same time doubts began assailing me. I asked myself: What led the University of Kashmir to honour me? Was it because by accident of birth I am classified as a Kashmiri Pandit? But there are many such Pandits. And there are quite a few who are, if anything, more distinguished than I am. So being a Kashmiri Pandit could not be the real (…)

• On the 100th Birth Anniversary of Parmeshwar Narain Haksar

  8 September 2013, by Nandita Haksar

  I have always thought of Parmeshwar Narain Haksar as Papa; a father I loved deeply and whose views influenced me in many ways even though we spent so much time arguing and disagreeing on many basic tenets of his Nehruvian beliefs.
  We had arguments about the feasibility of big dams, the need to recognise ethnic nationalities as minorities and the question of religion and caste.
  On my father’s 100th birth anniversary I would like to share some of the most precious memories of times (…)

• Freedom Day at Amritsar

  8 September 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Three landmarks to cover in a single day—that was how some of us spent our fiftieth Independence Day.
  The first of the pilgrimage was to the Indo-Pak border post at Wagah to celebrate the anniversary of the freedom at midnight.
  Reaching Amritsar by the Shatabdi Express in the late evening of August 14, about a dozen of us led by the President of the Citizens for Democracy, Kuldip Nayar, we were received by a huge crowd at the Amritsar station itself—which included (…)

• Assassination of an Activist: Who Killed Dr Narendra Dabholkar?

  8 September 2013, by Subhash Gatade

  TRIBUTE
  “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” —Albert Einstein
  Words have an uncanny ability of impinging on the receiver with clinical detachment. It is upto the receiver to unpack them or try to derive meaning out of them. It is still difficult to get over the sense of grief and shock one experienced when one received the news of the assasination of the renowned rationalist, Dr Narendra (…)

• Who Sows the Wind? And who Reaps the Whirlwind?

  8 September 2013, by Apratim Mukarji

  How does one explain the widespread trepidation that prevails in many countries over the fast-approaching date (end-2014) for the withdrawal of the NATO troops and Inter-national Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from Afghanistan? Principally, it is Afghanistan and regional countries, such as, Iran, India, Pakistan, the Central Asian Republics, China and Russia which are visibly perturbed over the probable consequences of the intended withdrawal of the foreign forces from direct ground-level (…)

• Another Demarcation on the Map

  8 September 2013, by Suranjita Ray

  The sparking of chaos and protests across the country with the announcement to divide Andhra Pradesh is not surprising. Protests in the streets of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema region against the division, and reassertions of the long pending demand for separate States in Assam and West Bengal, were expected.1 The last few decades have experienced several such social turmoils, many a time resulting in violence.
  While both the ruling and the opposition political parties (at the Centre, (…)

• A True Man of the Masses

  8 September 2013

  TRIBUTE
  by Bishwajit Sen
  The murder of Comrade Bindeshwari Sah on August 7 last, marked a definite turn in the Maoist politics of Bihar. It exposed a Maoist-police-landlord nexus which had been existing since a long time but had not been exposed as yet. But now with the land struggle reaching a qualitatively new stage, the hidden secrets of the ruling class are coming out the into the open. The pro-people and anti-people forces are positioning themselves for a decisive combat. (…)

• IAS Must Assert Itself

  8 September 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is at the apex to run the country’s administration. It replaced the Indian Civil Service (ICS) which was an instrument in the hands of the British to rule over India. After independence, there was serious thinking whether there should be an all-India service at all. The States wanted persons from their own area to administer.
  But, then Home Minister Sardar Patel was particular to have an all-India service to articulate the feeling of unity and to (…)

• Fifty Years of Martin Luther King Jr’s "I Have A Dream"

  8 September 2013

  by Krishnakumar S.
  The March to Washington For Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, fifty years back, was an unprecedented assertion of the Afro-Americans who were discriminated against in their own country, despite the tall promises made on equality through the Emancipation Proclamation during Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency, after the American Civil War.
  History was made with the celebrated speech of Martin Luther King Jr.—”I Have A Dream”—that drew the attention of the world to the (…)

• Amoral Politicians Create a Culture where Values Fall and Rapes Rise

  8 September 2013, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Our Supreme Court asked what citizens have been asking for a while: Why is there such a sharp rise in rape cases across the country? “We are shocked,” said a two-judge Bench. “What has gone wrong with our society? What is wrong with the system now? Is it the total failure of social values, the lack of law, or is it that law enforcement is not working well?”
  For the politicians who do not bother about such questions, here is “good” news: India is not the worst case in crimes (…)